Species of Scriptures: an Infraordinary Methodology for Urban Observation

Abstract

This paper analyses Species of Spaces (1974) by Georges Perec to bring into focus Perec’s notion of the infraordinary. Through the lens of Michel de Certeau’s and Henri Lefebvre’s work on everyday life, social production of space and tactical resistance it demonstrates how Perecquian poetics of the infraordinary can facilitate practice-based research of hypermediated urban environments. While traditions of urban observation such as flânerie and psychogeography have largely remained within artistic and historical frameworks, this article repositions the infraordinary as a methodological tool for research practices. It does so by combining literary analysis with site-specific study of unauthorised urban inscriptions (stickers and tags) in the Hague. This empirical component is not illustrative but constitutive, testing how sustained attention to the infraordinary reveals patterns of spatial practice, contestation and visibility that are often obscured by digitally mediated attention economies. The combined analysis of Species of Spaces and the fieldwork shows how everyday urban environments are written, (re-)appropriated and experienced.